“He must be awake.”
Sylvia swallowed a sigh, clenching her fists against the uncomfortable warmth kindling low in her belly.
It was unpleasant, but the medicine she had taken made it bearable.
One pill to dull her physical senses, another to ease her tension and regulate her heart rate.
She took all three, morning, noon, and night, without fail.
Acquiring such draughts was simple in the Knights’ Order, where they dealt with monsters daily.
There were side effects—her mood was more subdued, her digestion sluggish—but a poor appetite was a small price to pay to avoid being a helpless vessel for Owen’s urges.
Not that Owen had broken his promise.
Although on that first morning, when she had woken to a sensual thrumming despite the medicine she had taken to prevent any “emotional fluctuations,” she had felt a distinct urge to strangle him.
Owen had merely shrugged, unconcerned.
“I cannot help my morning erections.” There had not been a hint of shame on his smooth face.
He seemed utterly untroubled by the fact that she was now privy to his body’s every morning ritual.
If their situations were reversed, if it were she who became aroused each morning for him to feel, her cheeks would have burned until she was nothing but white ash.
A sense of profound unfairness washed over her.
‘Why is that man always so self-assured?’
For the first time, she felt an impulse to truly fluster the ever-composed Owen, to shatter his calm by her own power.
Of course, an impulse was all it was.
There was nothing she could do.
“Waking so late, simply because he is on holiday,” Sylvia grumbled, pulling aside the small curtain on the carriage door.
The dazzling midday sun glinted off the distant rooftops of the Imperial Palace.
Owen had taken a short leave two days prior and vanished.
His origins were a mystery, but unlike other knights of unknown birth, he lacked their desperation.
He used every bit of his allotted leave and showed no ambition for advancement, even after receiving a medal from the Emperor himself.
Sylvia’s friend Janet, another knight, had once remarked, “I believe he joined the order to die.
Do you not agree?
I have never seen him show a flicker of will for anything.”
Because Owen was Heston’s friend, those who were fond of Owen often approached her.
Janet was one of them, but she was different from those merely smitten with his bright golden hair, his handsome face, or his heart-stopping smile.
She was captivated by the void in his soul.
And she was not wrong.
Those who joined the perilous First Knight Order were either driven by some lofty moral ideology, sought rapid promotion to achieve other goals, or were pitiful souls sent by their families to die an honorable death.
Owen maintained cordial relations and was rarely injured, yet he exuded that same sense of finality.
As he seldom spoke of his family, rumors about him were rampant.
“That surname, Summers.
Surely he is not connected to Count Bronovitz?” some would whisper, citing that the maiden name of the Emperor’s right-hand man’s grandmother had been Summers.
“Absurd.
He is clearly a drug addict.
He takes days off to sequester himself at home and indulge his habit,” others would sneer.
Sylvia told herself it was of no concern to her, yet she found her thoughts drifting to him constantly in his absence.
“This is all because of this foolish Mana Sharing.” The remnants of his mana, which had flowed into her, were clearly clouding her mind.
She alighted from the carriage, straightened her uniform, and headed toward the Knights’ Order headquarters.
A commotion near the training grounds drew her attention.
Wondering if Owen had returned, she craned her neck and saw two knights sparring.
The moment she identified one of them, Sylvia froze.
The mere sight of him made her heart ache, as if caught in a vise.
His straight black hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and beneath it, his deep blue eyes flashed with fierce intensity.
Heston, clad in a light leather vest, thrust and parried with a long wooden sword, striking at every opening his opponent presented.
His arm was perfectly steady, his movements fluid as he closed and widened the distance between them in an instant.
His opponent, battered relentlessly without a chance to even cross swords, grew flushed with a mixture of red and purple.
“Continue like that, and a Felco will have your wrist in three minutes,” Heston stated simply.
He then kicked his opponent’s shin, spun, and struck his side with a sickening crack.
A groan escaped the man’s lips as he crumpled to the ground.
Heston spared the man a single glance before turning to the line of knights.
“Next.”
The casual way he twirled the wooden sword suggested he was in peak condition.
The other knights exchanged weary glances.
“How many has that been?”
“Last time, he at least stopped after twenty.”
“The madman.
Something must be troubling him.”
She could hear their whispers.
Heston often sparred with the others at the commander’s request.
As he was being considered for vice-commander, no one objected to his instruction.
Today, however, his methods seemed particularly harsh.
“It must be his fiancée,” one of the knights mused.
Sylvia felt her fists clench, and she forced her gaze elsewhere.
“The princess returned to the palace right after their engagement.
That block of wood was so smitten he proposed after only three months, and just when he thought he had her, she slipped away.
Imagine his frustration.
I wager they have not even held hands, let alone kissed.
The Ice Princess would never permit such a thing so easily.”
“You have a vulgar mind.
Is that all you think of?”
“No, wait… what is that?” Suddenly, the onlookers’ gazes fixed on Heston with an intensity that dwarfed their earlier interest.
“Huh?
You are right.”
“On the nape of his neck… It cannot be.”
Wondering if he had been injured, Sylvia looked closer.
Heston stood under the blazing sun, waiting patiently for his next opponent, making it difficult to see clearly.
Despite the oppressive heat, he did not brush back his hair, nor did his posture falter.
When a new opponent, prodded forward by the others, finally stepped up, Heston simply offered a brief, polite bow.
“Oh…”
Then Sylvia saw it.
On the nape of Heston’s neck was a raw, red scratch, as if made by fingernails.
It looked as though someone had gripped him from the front, their nails digging into his skin.
There were no bruises, only the clean marks of a hand—it was not an injury one would sustain in a spar.
It looked as if…
“A woman’s mark,” the man who had noticed it said, as if reading her thoughts.
“So much for not even holding hands.
It seems they are… enjoying themselves thoroughly.”
The men exchanged glances and began to snicker.
Though they clearly had more to say, the subject of Heston and the princess seemed to demand a certain caution.
Sylvia turned abruptly and walked away.
She did not want to assign meaning to it, did not want to lose herself in speculation.
But she could not banish the image from her mind.
In the past, in her innocence, she would have thought little of it.
But now, Sylvia could imagine the intimacies between a man and a woman that could result in such a mark.
The princess, her slender fingers gripping Heston’s flushed neck.
She pictured them, so lost in one another that in the throes of pleasure, neither would notice where hands were grasping, where nails were breaking skin.
‘You were right.
Because I have the princess.’
The thought was a blade in her heart, so agonizing she had to stop walking and gasp for breath.
“I do not want to imagine it.
I do not want to.”
But against her will, her mind filled with the image of Heston and Princess Katrin, intimately entwined.
If only she had never known.
If only she remained ignorant of the things that passed between a man and a woman in the night, of how completely they could be stripped bare before one another.
If she had known nothing, she would not be tormented by these visions now.
Sylvia pressed a hand to her feverish brow.
Emotions surged, and she felt utterly sordid for fantasizing about Heston in such a way.
Worse still, her imagination was merely superimposing Heston and the princess onto the afterimage of her own night with Owen.
She felt so wretched, so utterly fallen, that her head spun.
Desperate to escape the feeling, she fled.